


more to be desired

by canadino



Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-26
Updated: 2015-03-26
Packaged: 2018-03-19 19:39:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3621834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/canadino/pseuds/canadino
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For all those who peaked in middle school.</p>
            </blockquote>





	more to be desired

“I think I peaked in middle school,” Akashi Seijuro declared. 

“That’s not true,” Mibuchi protested. He had not extended his lunch break at the company to hear his old captain and underclassman depreciate himself. “You got into Tokyo University and you’re going to graduate summa cum laude in the spring, aren’t you?”

“I’ll rephrase it, I suppose. I haven’t felt satisfied with any of my accomplishments since middle school. When I was at Teiko, I thought my work and efforts had meaning and I thought that too during my first year at Rakuzan, but it’s all so dull to me now. All of these things, this degree and these grades - they all were par for the course.” Mibuchi had since gotten used to these tactless presumptions of Akashi’s. It wasn’t as if Akashi had not lost at any other point in his life besides that Winter Cup tournament his second year, Akashi’s first year. He’d placed second once in his class’s ranking when he had taken a few weeks to shadow his father at the family business and put together his stellar university applications. He’d been rejected by his safety schools, for who knows what reasons. Akashi was humbled, yes, much different from the Akashi who had entered Rakuzan and pronounced himself captain on the first day of basketball practice. Distance had done wonders for Akashi’s relationship with his father; no longer did he bristle at the thought of speaking with Masaomi and his phone conversations, from what Mibuchi had heard when he had visited three years ago, were calm and collected and Akashi had definitely controlled the situation. “I suppose I shouldn’t look down on the others in my department. I worked hard to be where I am, so that isn’t what I mean when I say I’ve peaked early.” He looks pensively into his coffee. “I just feel like everything I’ve done is so inadequate.”

“To whom?”

“Not my father, if that’s what you’re asking. Everything save from godly perfection is inadequate to my father. I’ve learned to move on from that.” Akashi looked into Mibuchi’s eyes and he still looked so earnest - a trait he hadn’t lost. “I just feel…it perplexes me that I can’t enunciate this feeling clearly…I feel like everything falls short from what I experienced in middle school. Isn’t that silly?”

“It isn't silly.” Mibuchi meant to glance at his watch on his wrist as casually as possible but he knew the movement hadn’t escaped Akashi. He had always thought entering into a career would free him from timetables and blocked schedules, but he had only seemed to shorten his leash and earned himself more dire deadlines. He felt a strange imperative to tell Akashi to treasure his youth while he still had it. “You just need a change of standards.”

“You mean…?”

“You developed an identify for yourself in middle school, didn’t you?” Akashi glanced down, to his left, and Mibuchi felt a bit of a foot in mouth moment. He hadn’t meant to bring up any old skeletons. “I mean - middle school is important because it starts paving the path you want to take in the future. You set up all these rules and expectations for yourself and you’ve reached them. So you need to come up with new ones.”

“Inheriting my father’s business was not my own personal goal, yes,” Akashi agreed. It had been a preset trajectory, something inevitable. Mibuchi thought it said something about Akashi that he had accepted it as an acceptable future for himself, but he always thought Akashi was a natural born leader and would shine in that kind of position. “You bring up something interesting, Reo.”

“This may be completely inappropriate of me, but might I suggest finding a significant other for yourself?”

Akashi stared at him, and Mibuchi could swear he saw a light pink flush cross his cheeks. “Excuse me?”

He almost laughed, but he knew Akashi would view it as teasing and disregard what he had to say. “I mean this in the best way, of course, you know I would never insult you…but you’ve been so focused on your studies and collecting social capital that you haven’t really had that much time having meaningful relationships, have you?”

“I,” Akashi sputtered, and Mibuchi could feel his amusement rising. Akashi could be indignant, sure, but he seemed so out of his league he could barely keep from stuttering his words. “I have you, don’t I? And Hayama, and Nebuya, and Mayuzumi…probably…and other friends…!”

“I don’t mean like that. Well, maybe. But you’ve already built a place for yourself, so won’t it be interesting to accommodate someone else? You were exploring new horizons in middle school, so it’s very similar.” Mibuchi checked his watch again, but this time Akashi was deep in thought. “If you’ll excuse me, Sei, but I really must be going. My manager is going to have my throat if I come back late again. But we can continue this conversation later, if you’d like! Just think about it.”

Fifteen minutes after Mibuchi rushed out of the cafe, Midorima Shintarou received a call from an unknown number on his phone. “Hello?” he said, balancing the phone carefully on his shoulder as he prepared himself to open the envelope that held his MCAT scores. He could have easily checked online but he was an old fashioned person and anyway, he had made sure to take the test on an auspicious day and waited for today, when Cancers ranked first, to check the numbers. He was fairly confident he scored high enough to enroll in his medical school of choice.

“Midorima,” Akashi’s voice said hesitantly. “Do you think I need to date someone?”

Midorima looked up and wondered if he was being pranked. He took a moment to find a hidden camera and double-checked the calendar to make sure it was truly the day he thought it was. “Akashi,” he said finally, “you call me out of nowhere just to ask me if you need a personal life? Yes, I think you do, if you have nothing else to do but do things like this.”

“Is this a bad time?” Akashi or not, the stars aligned for him today. Midorima opened the envelope and saw a 43. He breathed a sigh of relief. “Answer me.”

“It isn’t anymore.” Midorima put the score down and decided to tackle this new problem. “Why are you suddenly calling me? I didn’t know you still had my number.” 

“I do, don’t I,” Akashi said, a little wondrously, like he hadn’t even noticed. Considering how one-track Akashi could be, Midorima had a feeling he honestly did not. “Hey,” Akashi said, his voice taking on a curious tendency that Midorima could pick up even over the phone. He felt a sudden chill down his spine. “Midorima, do you think we should date?”

“Us? No, of course not.”

“That was so fast.”

“I mean, obviously. What did you expect? We haven’t spoken in years. You could have changed. I definitely changed. You can’t just call someone out of the blue and ask them to date you.” 

“Oh.” The line went quiet and Midorima went and put his MCAT results on the fridge with a red magnet. “So it’s just the time issue, right? May I ask you a question? Have you ever thought about dating me?” Midorima had steadier hands than he did in middle school. He thought that if he had gone back in time, he would not have looked away when Akashi turned to look at him during graduation. He might have answered truthfully when Akashi asked him if there was anyone he was interested in in the class. But that was then. 

“Akashi, you do realize this is a ridiculous topic to be discussing, with me of all people.”

“I’m sorry. Should I hang up?” Akashi had always been tactless, but now he was comfortable enough to call himself out on it. Midorima wondered what he was doing, if he was sitting in his room with his phone against his ear or if he was in transit. 

“Probably,” Midorima said, then took the opportunity when Akashi did not cut the line immediately to ask, “Why did you call me, out of everyone you know, to talk about this kind of thing?”

“I wonder too,” Akashi said. “Goodbye.” It would not be goodbye. Nothing was every permanent with Akashi, especially anything about him. Midorima knew himself, and knew he would be thinking about it even the next day during class, while ordering lunch, while getting drinks with the other pre-meds who had gotten their scores back too. He knew he would call back. He took the market next to his calendar and circled a day three days in the future; afterwards, he scrolled down his contacts and called his mother to tell her the good news. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading this half-baked fic! Leave a comment if you liked it.


End file.
